Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said unauthorized border crossings into the country by Afghan nationals should be stopped in order to prevent incidents along the border between the two countries.
If Afghans travel to Iran legally, border incidents can be prevented, Salehi said during a meeting in Tehran with Abdul Salam Azimi, the chief justice of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, IRIB reported on Saturday.
Salehi stated that the security of Iran and Afghanistan is intertwined, saying both nations are determined to maintain security and bilateral relations.
He urged Kabul to issue passports to Afghan nationals, adding that Iran would help facilitate the process by providing visas and determining the status of their stay.
Salehi called for the implementation of bilateral agreements and expressed hope that the two countries could expand their cooperation in the future.
The Afghan chief justice said Iran has been hosting millions of Afghan nationals for more than three decades and thanked the Iranian government and nation for their hospitality.
Azimi emphasized the need to provide legal documents for Afghans sojourning to Iran and added that easing visa issuance procedures for Afghan nationals could help reduce unauthorized entries into Iran.
Thousands of undocumented Afghans cross into Iran every year in search of employment.
Over the past three decades, Iran has hosted many refugees from neighboring countries, especially Afghanistan, though it has received little international support.
The voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees from Iran has been slow in recent years due to the tenuous security situation and economic hardships in Afghanistan, which political analysts say is mainly a result of the US-led occupation of the country.

Expanded Judicial Ties
On Saturday, the Afghani chief justice held talks with head of Iran’s Judiciary Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani.
During the meeting, both sides underlined the need for further expansion of bilateral ties and mutual cooperation, specially in judicial field, Fars News Agency reported.
Amoli Larijani and Azimi underlined the need for bolstering and reinvigorating ties between judiciaries of Iran and Afghanistan.
Amoli Larijani pointed to historical, religious, and cultural commonalities between the two countries, and said, “The hegemonic powers cannot obstruct mutual cooperation between Iran and Afghanistan.”
The Afghan chief justice, for his part, called for expansion of mutual cooperation between Tehran and Kabul, specially in the legal and judicial fields.
Azimi, heading a high-ranking delegation, began a three-day visit to Tehran on Saturday to discuss bilateral ties and mutual cooperation with senior Iranian officials.
On Monday, Azimi also held talks with Justice Minister Morteza Bakhtiari.

IAEA’s Parchin Visit Acceptable...

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The Islamic Republic insists it has no interest in nuclear weapons, and says it is enriching uranium for purely peaceful purposes, such as nuclear power.
There have been attempts from both sides to find common ground in the issue, but negotiations have yielded no results.
The latest Iran’s nuclear talks in Kazakhstan in April also brought no breakthrough with negotiators going back to their capitals declaring ‘positions remain far apart’.
Since then no date or place has been set for new talks.
Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is expected to visit Moscow on July 1-2 as Russia hosts a forum of gas exporting countries.
“The Iranian president has been invited, and so we are expecting his visit,” Sajjadi said at a meeting, stressing that Ahmadinejad still will be acting president.

Proposal for Moral Internet Welcomed

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Minister Mohammad Hassan Nami said Tehran’s proposal to launch an internet with globally-accepted codes of ethics was welcomed in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Conference.
“The Iranian delegation put forward three proposals, one of which was developing a clean internet and omitting immoral dimensions from the internet,” Fars News Agency quoted Nami as saying on Sunday.
He said that the participants in the ITU conference welcomed Iran’s proposals for the creation of an internet based on globally accepted codes of ethics.
Iran’s Ministry of Communications and Technology announced in 2012 that it would launch a national internet in future. The domestic internet, which will work as a kind of intranet, is supposed to be ‘clean’ from ‘immoral’ sites.
Iran’s information minister said the country’s own internet network will solve problems with costs, security and bandwidth.
In relevant remarks in August 2012, former minister of communication and information technology Reza Taqipour blasted the existing monopoly and the instrumental use of the worldwide web by a few western countries.
Addressing a gathering of Iranian university lectures and industrial managers at the time, Taqipour said the worldwide web is not a ‘reliable’ network specially in times of crisis.
“Internet should not be in the hands of one or two specific countries,” the minister noted, adding that internet is now considered to be a powerful media in economic as well as security and social fields.
The minister pointed to Iran’s plan to launch a national internet network, stating that the network will turn threats into opportunities.

West Cannot Make Iran Surrender

Commander of the Basij (volunteer) Force Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi underlined that the western sanctions and boycotts cannot paralyze Iran due to the nation’s resistant nature.
“Today the enemies think that they can make the Islamic Iran back down from its position and give up its sacred ideals and causes through pressures and economic sanctions, but this is a futile dream and a failed idea,” Naqdi said in the northwestern city of Tabriz on Sunday.
He also strongly opposed compromise with the US to broaden the chances and options for resolving Iran’s economic problems, saying that the fate of certain states like Egypt, Libya and Iraq which were under the US influence showed that compromise is not a good way to solve the problems, Fars News Agency reported.
Iran is under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and unilateral western embargos for turning down West’s calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment, saying the demand is politically tainted and illogical.
Iran has so far ruled out halting or limiting its nuclear work in exchange for trade and other incentives, saying that renouncing its rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) would encourage the world powers to put further pressure on the country and would not lead to a change in the West’s hard-line stance on Tehran.
The US and its western allies allege that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program while they have never presented corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations against the Islamic Republic. Iran says its nuclear program is a peaceful drive to produce electricity so that the world’s fourth-largest crude exporter can sell more of its oil and gas abroad.
Tehran also stresses that the country is pursuing a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population once fossil fuel eventually runs dry.

2 Azeri Nationals Set Free

Iranian Ambassador to Baku Mohsen Pakayeen announced on Sunday that the two Azeri nationals who were detained in Iran for violating the country’s laws have been released.
“Khalida Khalid, an Azerbaijan national in Iran, and her driver were freed this morning,” Pakayeen said, according to Fars News Agency.
Pakayeen had earlier this month said that ‘the two Azeri citizens had traveled to Iran as tourists and were detained for breaching Iranian laws’.
Khalid, a researcher at the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS), and her driver, Shamkhal Huseynov, were detained in the northwestern city of Tabriz.
Dismissing claims that the arrest of Khalid was related to her being an employee of ANAS, the Iranian ambassador explained that Iran has very good relations with ANAS whose members attend seminars in Iran. Pakayeen reiterated that the arrests of the Azeri nationals were made due to their violation of Iranian law, elaborating that over 130 Iranian nationals are currently being held in detention in Azerbaijan for violating the Azeri law.
He underlined that the detention of the two Azeri citizens will have no bearing on Tehran-Baku relations.
Informed sources at the Iranian Foreign Ministry declared earlier this month that the two Azeri nationals had been detained for ‘unusual’ behavior. An informed source at the ministry, who asked for anonymity, said they had been detained because their behavior aroused suspicion.
“The two individuals arrived in Iran as tourists and the charges raised against them is illegal action, including establishing some unusual contacts,” the source told Fars in May. He further explained that the Iranian judiciary is now verifying their charges.

VP, Hezbollah Chief Confer on Regional Developments

Vice President Mohammad Reza Mir-Tajeddini and Secretary General of the Lebanese Hezbollah Movement Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah discussed the latest regional developments, particularly the situation in Syria.
During the meeting on Sunday, the two sides conferred on the situation in Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories as well as the Zionist regime’s continued threats against the region, Fars News Agency reported. They underlined the need for a political solution to the crisis in Syria.
Syria has been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.
Mir-Tajeddini is in Lebanon to meet senior Lebanese officials.
He had also earlier met with other senior Lebanese officials among them Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri, Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati.

CIA, Mossad Spies Executed

Iran has executed two spies who worked for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Israeli spy agency, the Mossad.
The two men, who were sentenced to death by Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, were hanged at dawn on Sunday, Press TV reported.
The Mossad agent, identified as Mohammad Heidari, was found guilty of gathering Iranian classified information and providing the intelligence to the Israeli spy agency in the course of several meetings outside the Islamic Republic.
Heidari had received sums of money from the Mossad in return for the acts of espionage.
The other spy, Kourosh Ahmadi, was convicted of contacting CIA agents and providing them with intelligence on Iran.

Smuggled Afghanis

A car packed with Afghanis smuggled into Iran collided with another vehicle in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan and burst into flames, killing nine Afghanis and five Iranians, IRNA said on Monday.